Federal obligations in search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical system and instrument manufacturing (NAICS 334511)

What 334511 manufactures on paper

NAICS 334511 covers establishments that manufacture search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical systems and instruments. On USAspending.gov the code tags contract awards classified that way: sensors, fire-control related instruments, navigation sets, and similar electronics manufacturing. It is not a count of radars deployed, and it is not the complete platform those instruments ride on.

Complete aircraft are 336411. Complete missiles and space vehicles are 336414. Radio and television broadcasting and wireless communications equipment is 334220. A fighter or a ship can generate dollars in 334511 for the sensor suite and dollars in a platform code for the vehicle. The $121.2 billion figure is only the instrument-manufacturing slice tagged 334511.

Reading $121.2 billion in instrument obligations

USAspending records obligations on contract awards. Production lots, spares, and engineering changes on instrument programs all feed $121,166,651,507.81. This packet has no fiscal-year split and no outlay total. Multi-year sensor programs can show large obligations while deliveries and payments continue.

Outlays are the later payments. Quote $121.2 billion as USAspending contract obligations coded to NAICS 334511, not as an electronics budget and not as cash already spent.

22,688 awards on an electronics manufacturing code

Instrument manufacturing generates many award records because spares, repairs, and smaller sensor buys proliferate, unlike complete-platform codes that concentrate dollars on fewer lots. The 22,688 count is still not a unit count of instruments. Orders and modifications each appear as records. The industry page is the place to see how those rows concentrate.

Sensors and navigation gear ride on platforms that have their own manufacturing codes. NAICS 334511 is the instrument line: $121,166,651,507.81 in USAspending obligations on 22,688 awards. Complete aircraft stay on 336411. Complete missiles stay on 336414. Wireless communications equipment stays on 334220. A fighter program can put the airframe, the radar, and the radio on three pages. This guide reports the radar-and-navigation-style page only. The 22,688 records include spares and repairs. They are not a unit inventory of radars. Cite USAspending, obligations, and the long instrument title. Keep outlays out. Keep platform nicknames out unless they appear on an award you open in the industry table.

What the instrument table excludes

Assistance awards often lack NAICS and are outside this total. Computer systems design (541512) is a services code for integrating systems, not manufacturing the instrument. R&D codes capture research contracts that may precede a production 334511 award. Those dollars stay on their own industry pages unless the award itself was tagged 334511.

SpendingVault aggregates USAspending.gov contract data. The $121,166,651,507.81 total and the 22,688 award count can change after corrections. Use the live industry page as current.

Using the 334511 industry page

Open the SEARCH, DETECTION, NAVIGATION, GUIDANCE, AERONAUTICAL, AND NAUTICAL SYSTEM AND INSTRUMENT MANUFACTURING industry page for the award list. Compare 334511 with platform manufacturing and with 334220 on All industries. Cite obligations, not outlays, and keep the 22,688 award count with the dollar figure.

Citing instrument manufacturing without the platform

Cite $121,166,651,507.81 in USAspending obligations on 22,688 awards tagged NAICS 334511. Name the work as search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical systems and instruments. That long title is the point: it is not the aircraft, not the missile, and not a wireless handset line.

The 22,688 award count reflects spares and repairs as well as production lots. It is not a radar inventory. Outlays are unpaid in this packet. If a sensor suite was coded to a platform NAICS instead, those dollars will not appear here. The industry page is the place to inspect tagging on individual awards.

Instrument manufacturing is where sensors, fire-control related gear, and navigation sets live when tagged 334511. Ordinary speech calls much of that avionics or C4ISR hardware. NAICS does not use those program nicknames. The $121,166,651,507.81 total is the tagged manufacturing stock. The 22,688 awards include spare and repair actions that make this code look busier than complete-platform lines.

A radar on an aircraft can be bought under 334511 while the aircraft is bought under 336411. Both sentences can be true. Adding the pages together as aviation spending requires a tagging rule this packet does not provide. Quote this page as USAspending obligations on 22,688 awards coded 334511, not as a platform total and not as an outlay total.

Questions

How much is obligated on NAICS 334511 navigation and detection instruments?

USAspending.gov contract awards coded NAICS 334511 show $121,166,651,507.81 in obligations across 22,688 awards. That total is obligations, not outlays, for search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical system and instrument manufacturing. USAspending.gov records the amount as contract obligations, not outlays, on awards tagged NAICS 334511.

Does 334511 include complete aircraft or missiles?

No. Complete aircraft are 336411 and complete missiles are 336414. This table’s $121,166,651,507.81 is instrument and system manufacturing tagged 334511. The packet total is $121,166,651,507.81 across 22,688 awards; assistance awards often have no NAICS and stay outside the industry rollup.

Is this the same as wireless communications equipment?

No. Radio and television broadcasting and wireless communications equipment manufacturing is NAICS 334220. 334511 is search, detection, navigation, and related instruments. The totals are separate. Treat the 22,688 figure as an award-record count, including orders and modifications, not as a physical inventory of products or sites.

Do 22,688 awards mean 22,688 radars?

No. The 22,688 figure counts contract award records, including spares and modifications. It is not a unit inventory of instruments. This guide does not add a fiscal-year split. Quote the live industry page if you need the current award list under SEARCH, DETECTION, NAVIGATION, GUIDANCE, AERONAUTICAL, AND NAUTICAL SYSTEM AND INSTRUMENT MANUFACTURING.